A friend emailed this to me. I t hought it would be perfect for HER TALK, and yes, the guys can read it, too. I left it exactly as it was sent to me.

THE WILD NATURE OF A WOMAN

This is for the women - we need this wisdom because wesometimes lose ourselves in those for whom we care.

A healthy woman is much like a wolf, she radiates a strong life force,she is life-giving, territorily aware, intuitive and loyal.Yet seperation from her wildish nature causes a woman to become meager,anxious, and fearful.

The wild nature of a woman carries the medicine for all things.She carries stories, dreams, words and songs. She carries everythinga woman needs to be and know. She is the essence of the female soul...

With the wild nature as ally and teacher, we see not through two eyes only,but through the many eyes of intuition. With intuition we are like thestarry night, we gaze at the world through a thousand eyes.

For a woman, this does not mean to lose one's primary socializations.It means quite the opposite. The wild nature has a vast integrity to it.It means to establish territory, to find one's pack, to be in one's bodywith certainty and pride, to speak and act in one's behalf, to be aware,to draw on the innate feminine powers of intuition, to find what onebelongs to, to rise with dignity, to proceed as a powerful being who isfriendly but never tame.

The Wild Woman is the one who thunders in the face of injustice.She is the one we leave home to look for and the one we come home to.She is the one who keeps a woman going when she thinks she's done for.She is intuition, far-seer, deep listener, and she is loyal heart.She thrives on fresh site and self-integrity.

She must strut the old pathways, assert her instinctual knowledge,proudly bear the battle scars of her time, write her stories on walls,refuse to be ashamed, lead the way through and out, be focused andkeep her wild wits about her.

Where can you find her? She walks in the deserts, cities, woods, oceans,and in the mountain of solitude. She lives in women everywhere; in castleswith queens, in the boardrooms, in the penthouse, and on the night bus toBrownsville.

She lives in a faraway place that breaks through to our world. She livesin the past and is summoned by us. She is in the present. She is in thefuture and peers backward in time to find us now.

Wild woman whispers the words and the ways to us, and we follow. She has been running and stopping and waiting to see if we are catching up.She has many things to show us.

Whether you are possessed of a quiet heart or are ambitious, whether youare trying to make it to the top or just make it through tomorrow, thewild nature belongs to you.

Don't be a fool. Go back and stand under that one red flower and walkstraight ahead for that last hard mile. Go up and knock on the old weathered door. Climb up to the cave. Crawl through the window of a dream. Sift the desert and see what you find.It is the only work we have to do.

Psychically, it is good to make a halfway place, a way station, a consideredplace in which to rest and mend after one escapes a famine.It is not too much to take one year, two years, to assess one's wounds,seek guidance, apply the medicines, consider the future. A year or two isscant time.

The feral woman is a woman making her way back to herself. She is learning to wake up,pay attention, stop being naïve, uninformed. She takes her life in her own hands.To re-learn the deep feminine instincts, it is vital to see how they weredecommissioned to begin with.

Without us, Wild Woman dies. Without Wild Woman, we die.

Para Vida, for true life, both must live.

Text summarized fromWomen Who Run With WolvesClarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D.

Medicine Woman shares secret wisdomPassed down from Grandmothers and Great-grandmothersAnd all the women of EarthWho danced in moonlight and sang the old chants and nursed the children,Who tended the cookpot and tanned the hides and mended the hearts,Who gathered the herbs and ground the corn and healed the woundsAnd walked tall and brown and bountiful beneath the Sun.

Medicine Woman brings silver light,Shimmering gifts from ancient ancestors and ethereal onesAnd all the beings of CosmosWho bask in moonglow and dream the old chants and nurture new life,Who tend the hungry and clothe the helpless and mend the spirits,Who gather the energies and make the magic and heal the broken worldsAnd fly high and light and gentle among the Stars.

Medicine Woman gives mind, heart and spiritTo family, friends and lost and lonely strangers,To all creatures who travel with her on EarthWho feel the pull of the Moon and forget the old chants and live aschildren,Who feel the hunger of the soul and the cold and pain of the Modern Age,Who search for a miracle and ache for the magic and breathe the woundsAnd wait and watch and hope for the Dawn.

1995 Lillian D. Henderson

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"Behind every great fortune lies a great crime."Honore de Balzac

"Democrats work to help people who need help. That other party, they work for people who don't need help. That's all there is to it."~Harry S. Truman